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Laverne Cox Challenges Passing Privilege and Lifts Up Trans Beauty

By awarding more value to transgender people who “pass” as their gender, we send the message that something’s wrong with being trans.

That message is wrong.

Here’s Laverne Cox challenging it with the recognition that being trans is beautiful.

Take in her uplifting message to combat the harm of passing privilege. We should be free to proudly pass as ourselves.

Click for the Transcript

Wilson Cruz: What are your thoughts on passing privilege and how to combat that?

Laverne Cox: You better break it down! I’m actually—I have to say—I’m exhausted because I’ve been working my tushy off. I’m invigorated by it, I really am invigorated by this conversation. Thank you, Wilson, and thank you all, to everyone. Passing privilege—I think it’s really a complicated issue. I think that it is important that trans people who do have that privilege have space to identify as trans when they want to on their own terms.

I think that it’s important to be critical of that. It’s funny—someone—I try not to read negative comments about me, but someone on social media said that—the question was: “Is Laverne Cox bad for the trans community because” and the argument was because I was “drop dead gorgeous on the cover of Time Magazine, and I don’t represent all trans people,” and I said, “I’m drop dead gorgeous?” [laughs] The funny thing—the intense thing is I don’t feel drop dead gorgeous.

Wilson: Well you are.

Laverne: I still—a few weeks ago—and this doesn’t happen every day anymore—but a few weeks ago, somebody called me a man on the street; I was called a he-she. I still get—I don’t think I’ve ever had a passing privilege, personally. When somebody is calling you a man on the street, I don’t feel like I’m passing. I think the whole thing… The question, Janet [Mock] speaks beautifully about this because passing as myself.

Wilson: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Laverne: You know I think it’s like, I’m a woman. I’m passing as myself, I’m a woman, I’m a black woman, I’m a trans woman. For me throughout my life and transition, I’ve embraced… early on, I did not embrace being trans. I was hoping to transition and to pass and to have that privilege, and I didn’t, it didn’t happen. I would still walk down the street, and so many of my sisters and brothers and siblings, trans siblings in general, have experienced that. When they’re walking down the street and people call them out of their names.

For me, I had to begin to empower myself and say that there’s nothing wrong with me being trans. There’s nothing wrong with me being recognized as trans because being trans is beautiful. I think different people look different ways. I think it’s really important to, I don’t want to demonize anyone who might pass or blend in, as a cis person, maybe read as cis. The passing term is so problematic. I’m not going to demonize them because everybody has their own journey and their own struggle.

Laverne Cox is a critically acclaimed actress who currently appears in the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black, playing the groundbreaking role of “Sophia Burset,” an incarcerated African American transgender woman. Laverne is the first trans woman of color to have a leading role on a mainstream scripted television show. Time Magazine named Sophia Burset the 4th most influential fictional character of 2013. A renowned speaker, Laverne has taken her empowering message of moving beyond gender expectations to live more authentically all over the country. Her insights have been featured on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NPR, HLN, VH1, FOX NEWS LATINO, among other national TV and radio networks.